I squint into the sun
And existence becomes
A blackened vignette
With a sparkling path
Leading directly
To a burst of light
In a cloud-strewn sky
A vision I recognize
From those times of connection
When I was one with everything
And the knowledge of all existence
Seemed not only plausible
But within my grasp
Heady times
And I wonder
Was I mad then to believe
The epiphany was real
Or mad now to have let it slip
From experience
To memory
Now a personal myth
An oppressive weight
Waiting to fall
My mood becomes dark as the sky
Until I realize the low grey cover
Provides an atmospheric parasol
A gift to soften harsh desert sun
Diminish the heat of afternoon
An invitation to step out of the car
I breathe deeply in sage-scented air
While my mood becomes effervescent
As sage drifting in the desert breeze
When space becomes time
And time becomes space
When love becomes all possibility
And possibility infinite
And time timeless
I will find you
And always will
Because this is the thing
Between you and I
The connection without reason
The being without purpose
Except that we are always
Together
Whether far apart
Or side-by-side
Decades may pass
Without a touch
Though we are always
Touching
In the end
That is all we need know
About the unknowable
Then notice the shapes
How each tile had to be cut
Individually
By hand
Just so
Or it would not fit
The precision
It’s astonishing
I draw back a little
And see the larger forms
Shaped by the small tiles
The lines weaving their way
Through the forms
Linking one to another
Delineating them
Then notice the star
In the lower left corner
Or is it a sphere?
How do you create the sense
Of a soft round orb
With nothing but straight lines
And hard edges?
But neither my eye
Nor my mind
Can linger there long
Follow the trail
Walk the maze
A lazy, meandering drive
Through rolling country
Up to the chains
All interlocked
Each link with its own form
Peanuts and hearts
Circles and infinity
Then the letters
Is there any written language
So beautiful as Arabic
In the hands of an artisan
Filigree relief in plaster
Harmonious
With the sweeping strokes
I understand the grace of Rumi
With such elegant script
As a medium
And wonder at what beauty
The translated words
Might speak to me
I step back
Take in the wider view
Such conscious beauty here
But I cannot hold all of it
Not in my mind
Not all at once
The lines and shapes
The forms and individual tiles
The curling words
All of it intertwined
In space and history and culture
A tapestry of ceramic and plaster and time
A small rectangle of wall
Is all so much larger
And beautiful
Than my ability to hold it all
In consciousness
So I open my heart
Let my spirit become my senses
Let experience touch my being
And there it is
All of it
Not contained by me
By my mind
Or my heart
Or my spirit
But I contained in it
It is not the mosaic
Through which the white lines flow
But myself
And so become I
Part of the mosaic
And the mosaic is me
As suddenly as it came
The awareness passes
Though my memory of it
Remains
All such epiphanies
Great or small
Prove to be
Both ephemeral
And eternal
I stand there
Manifest again
Looking upon a mosaic
On a wall
In a fabulous structure
Built centuries ago
Occupied by many empires since
A mosaic of existence itself
And I wonder
If all along
That was the message intended
By artists and artisans
Who designed and created
One small mosaic on a wall
In the Alhambra
Life
Existence itself
Is a mosaic
Here we draw together
To feel the connection
Through all that is
To each other
These quiet hours
In the quiet streets
Shared by a few other strays
When being alone in my own skin
Offers a kind of camaraderie with other lone souls
Being alone in their own skin
From the black
My spirit rose
Found the path
Where current flows
The energy
Connects us all
And me to me
The deepest part
I come to know
In violet light
Is bathed
But for
A trickle of light
Filtered down
Through the depths
And for a time
On cloudless days
A streamer
Of brilliance
Reminds
A world beyond
This dreary depth
No chains
Confine me
No darkness
Destroy me
No isolation
Confound me
The light beyond
Serves to remind
The light within
Always burning
Always bright
Always connected
So that I
Am never in darkness
Am never restrained
Am never alone
Never leaving the earth
But detached from it
Gone from ground
I reach
Beyond myself
Flutter in the wind
Adrift in the sky
Lost to god
Pix to Words 